There’s a certain essence that comes along with summer that just feels so much like home to me. Soft warm breezes, the gentle rhythmic rocks of a front yard swing, the refreshing first sip of tangy homemade lemonade, the sound of water splish-splashing in a pool or the deep roll of a mid-summer thunderstorm.
Sometimes throughout the year, I find myself wishing it was summer. That I could walk out of the house in a light, flowy sundress and ride with the windows rolled down and the music turned up. There’s something about summer that brings out the kid in all of us. When I walk barefoot across fresh cut grass with the sound of locust serenading me as the lightening bugs dance their dance, the little girl inside of me comes alive again.
There is a line from my childhood summertimes that is permanently etched in my mind. My dad says it every year when the locust sing their song, “Do you hear that noise? Do you know what that means? Summer will be over before you know it.”
The older I get, the more accurate that feels. I blink and the leaves are suddenly turning from their bright, lush green to their painted reds and yellows.
In a way, it’s sad. But in another way, I become overly eager to trade in summer dresses for flannel and fresh lemonade for pumpkin spice.
As I go through life and I encounter really difficult seasons, seasons that feel full of desert wandering – intense and unbearable and lacking sustenance. Where everything feels dried up and dried out and the growth of anything seems impossible. When I’m begging, “God, please send rain.” Seasons where I’m wishing another season would come…that I could trade in the broken for the beautiful…I think I need to let the words of my earthly father remind me of the words of my heavenly Father as He whispers to me, “Do you hear that? Do you know what that means? This season will be over before you know it.” May I never lose sight of that promise – the promise that hard seasons ultimately create the strength needed to sustain life in new seasons. And the new season will come.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alexis Judy is on staff at her local crisis pregnancy center, she has discipled middle and high school girls for 4 years, is involved with student ministry at Liberty Baptist Church, and is on the SBCV Women’s Ministry State team.
